Success
in never a coincidence, they say. Unlike most forms of therapy that seek to
understand the reasons why we feel bad or why something is not working for us,
NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) focuses on what works. NLP is a model of
success and its developers have studied extensively what the most important
factors of success are, regardless of how you define success.
After
studying countless studies and models, I have come to realize that success in
practically anything in life can be crystallized on six elements. The six
elements of success are, in fact, perhaps best understood by questions that you
can ask yourself:
1. Where are you?
How
happy and successful are you right now? What kind of thinking and what kinds of
actions have taken you to where you are at the moment?
What
are your assets and liabilities? Make a list of them and take a good inventory
of your current state.
From
now on, rather than thinking how far you still have to go to reach your goals,
enjoy the distance you have already travelled.
2. What do you want?
What
is the worthy goal that you want to achieve? How do you know when you have
achieved what you want?
“If you do not know where you are going, any road will
get you there.” – Lewis Carroll
3. Why do you want it?
Do
you have a genuine motivation to work on your goal? Is the goal coming from
within you or is it, in fact, set by an outside authority? Does your journey
toward your goal enhance your level of happiness?
”The most
successful people are those people who truly ‘believe’ in what they do. Not
that they just say they do. They have a passion for what they do.” – Richard
Bandler & John La Valle
4. What stops/has stopped you from reaching
your goal?
What
are your limiting beliefs? Do you have all the necessary resources to reach
your goal?
”Beliefs
shape the way we feel, think, and act.” – Mandy Evans
5. How do you reach your goal?
What
is your strategy and, above all, what kind of action and behavior is required
from you to reach your success?
What
is your first step toward your desired outcome? When will you take it?
Take
action.
“Without
action there’s no possibility of success.” -Richard Bandler & Garner
Thomson
6. How are you doing?
Remember:
there are no failures along the way, only feedback. If one way of acting is not
getting you the results you want, act differently.
Keep
refining your actions until you get what you want.
“Doing the
same things in the same way will only get you the same results. If you want
different results, something has to change.” – Hannu Pirilä
The
formula for success is, after all, quite simple, and it can be executed by
anyone. Some of us have found the formula and its elements by themselves. For
most of us, however, figuring out the things listed above, can be tricky (if
this wasn’t so, most of the people in the world would define themselves as
being successful).
NLP
based Success Coaching helps the client especially with these six elements. It
contains, however, also a lot more when needed. We all define by ourselves what
success means to us. The purpose of Success Coaching is to not only help the
client to define that, but also to provide them with assistance and insights to
figure out how to achieve the success they want – and to enjoy their journey.
”When you
make great, big goals – whether you get to them or not – the things that happen
along the way are what makes life wonderful.” - Richard Bandler
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In the business world,
values and mission statements have been discussed for a long time already –
although in many cases they have been more like just plain words and a part of
the company image, than actually guiding operators of action. If we, however,
really give them some actual focus, they can have a huge significance in our
lives, especially in a long run.
Very few of us have
considered these things on our own personal level, though. This is a pity,
since values and meanings play a remarkable role when it comes to achieving personal success and happiness.
“Knowing what your values are is excellent, because
happiness comes from living your values every single day, regardless of how
close or far away your goals may seem to be.” - Paul McKenna
Consideration of this
subject is good to start by asking yourself: “what is important to me?” – and
wait for the answer. As you ask yourself this question, you will probably get a
small list of values like money, love, happiness, success, kids, work etc.
These first values are usually more or less obvious and therefore we should not
necessarily settle for them only.
We should go and
examine this first list a little deeper. You can do this by asking yourself:
“what is important to me about money?” or “why is love important to me?” and so
on. Ask these questions regarding every value on your list.
Now you probably start to
get some different kind of answers, like “with money I can feed my family,”
“with money I can improve my quality of life,” “being loved makes me happy,”
“having someone to love means that I care for other people” or perhaps
something similar or maybe something totally different.
You can continue asking
these “what is important to me about…?” and “why is (X) important to me?”
questions for quite a long time per value. This way we can very often reveal
some deeper values that are, in fact, more important to us than the values that
first come to our mind.
After you have listed a
total of about six to ten values, it is important to put them into an order of
importance. This can be achieved by comparing the values in pairs.
So, take the first two
values on your list and ask yourself, which one is more important? After you
know the answer to that, take the one that is more important to you and make
the same comparison to the third value on your list. For example, if the first
two values on your list are money and love, ask yourself first: “which one is
more important to me, money or love?” Let’s say that you find love to be more
important of those two and the third value on your list is happiness, you then
ask yourself: “which one is more important to me, love or happiness?” Again,
take the more important value from these two and make the comparison between
that and the fourth value on your list.
Go through your whole
list of values this way, all the way down to the last value. Whatever value
“wins” the last comparison, is your most important value. Write it down on a
new list as your Number 1 Value and strike it out from your original list.
Now go through the
comparisons again with the rest of the values on your list. Whatever value
“wins” this round is your second most important value. Write it down on the new
list as your Number 2 Value and strike it out from your original list. Keep on
working this way until you have put all your values into a value hierarchy.
Next it is time to
examine your value hierarchy a bit closer. Are there any value conflicts
present? A value conflict may be born when one value, in one way or another,
prevents the fulfillment of another value. For example, let’s say that you have
“freedom” as your Number 1 Value and “family” as your Number 2 Value. Now, in
some level, you might feel that having a family prevents you from achieving the
freedom in life that you desire and that might be a remarkable value conflict
for you.
Value conflicts are
quite common and they can significantly prevent us from achieving the success and happiness we desire. A value conflict can in fact very well be the key issue
there.
Another thing to look
for is if there are any values in your hierarchy that are based on avoidance of
something. This is important because if there are values that are based on
avoiding something, it means that your focus is then on the negative, and every
time you focus on something that you don’t want, you’ll feel bad (you can read more about this subject in my blog article "Feeling Bad vs. Feeling Good."). For example, if the importance of family is
based on your avoidance of being lonely, it means that at least part of your
focus on family gives you, in fact, bad feelings.
What has been explained
above, is a rather simple way of finding out what is important to us in life.
When we examine the questions long and deep enough, we might find an answer to
as big a question as what is the purpose of our life.
Whether you find your
purpose of life through defining your value hierarchy or not, it would be quite
beneficial for you to write your own mission statement, based on your values. A
mission statement is a compressed, one or two sentence long, description of
what is most important to you. It could be something like: “My mission in life
is to help in a best possible way my children to start their own independent
lives and live my own life to the fullest.”
Okay, that might not
touch you, but do write your own mission statement!
As I have stated
earlier, companies have declared their mission statements for ages already.
Microsoft, for example, states that their mission and values are the following:
“At Microsoft, our mission and values are to help people and businesses
throughout the world realize their full potential.” As another example, Nike’s
mission statement is “To bring
inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.”
So why is finding out
our values and mission or purpose in life so important? Values and purpose give
us a direction. Without direction and purpose, our life – or in a company’s
case, their business – will easily drift to areas that do not bring us
satisfaction, not to mention happiness. Values and purpose, along with
well-formed goals, will help us keep the right direction in our lives and in
our actions. And when we keep moving toward a direction in our life that brings
us the most satisfaction and pleasure, then life itself will be worth living.
To bring that business
aspect along a bit more, just imagine how it would feel like to work in a
company that has a clear direction and that has products or services that
really matter?
“Effective mission statements have three qualities in
common: passion, purpose and direction.” - Richard Bandler & Garner Thomson
Sign-up for my free newsletter! I promise I will not spam your email with frequent messages; I will only sent you something whenever there is something that I think might truly interest you (and, of course, you can unsubscribe from my mailing list any time you like). Just fill-out the form below and you're all set. Simple and easy.
